Cabezo del Plomo

The Cabezo del Plomo is one of the main settlements in the late Neolithic/Chalcolithic era in the Peninsula. It is a fortified settlement over a hilled meseta in the foothills on Sierra de las Moreras mountains.

Uphill, the wall and circular cottages are located, while downhill we can find the remains of a burial in tholos, a testimony of the Megalithic period in the area.

The archaeological diggings were done by the Archaeology Department of the University of Murcia and Monitored by Ms. Ana María Muñoz Amilibia in several stages, from 1979 to 1985.

The site is declared Asset Of Cultural Interest.

Life in the area can be situated between late 4th and mid-3^rd millennium before our era. The inhabited part had an extension of 3200 m2 , surrounded by a wall located in the most vulnerable parts of the town, being west and south.

The technique of the construction of the wall consists of two courses of stones, filled with other medium-sized rocks. To reinforce the defense line, the wall was completed with attached defensive bastions.

In the inner part of the town, housings were located, with circular plants and stone plinths. Coverings were made of vegetable materials. Among the materials found in the archaeological diggings, lithic elements are the most important ones, used for agricultural works and flour mills. Remains of house cattle and arrow points for hunting are also present at the site.

All of this seems to indicate that life at the town was mostly based on farming and agriculture, although hunting and recollection from near areas, including the coast, were also included.

The tholos of Cabezo del Plomo is a graveyard monument located outside walls, at the foothill of the town, and the only one remaining from the necropolis.

Built around the first half of the 4th millennium BC, it is built with a trapezoidal chamber, delimited with orthostates (vertical stones) and surrounded by a circular structure. All the external set has a tumular shape. It has no hall and the roof has a fake dome with proximity courses.

The monument itself imitates housing or circular cottages, becoming a sort of second housing itself. Some authors consider that this monument has an eastern influence because of the resemblance with the tholos present in other areas of the Mediterranean sea, around the Aegean.

This Tholos represent a system of collective burials, successively done in the inner part of the burial chamber. In the ritual, corpses are associated with their objects, placed next to the body, so they can possess them in a new life. There are some functional objects, like daily items, while others are of magical nature.